4/28/13

One of the biggest accomplishments of the past 3 weeks was completing version 0.1 of Singularity. It took a while, but I've gotten rid of most of the major bugs, leaving it in a stable, working state. Here's what I've added:

Singularity also automatically checks for updates every once in a while, displaying a system notification when you have unread items

Slight graphical improvements to the feed view

Entries now display their author(if provided)

Most feeds ought to be correctly parsed now, even the ones that are improperly formatted

One big issue remains, however. It takes an absurdly long time for Singularity to start up. This is because imports aren't done in a separate thread at the moment, and the program must wait until they're finished to continue. I have a solution in mind, but it's not showing up until the next version. I'm also planning on restructuring both the code and the interface for v0.2. In the meantime, though, it works well enough.

4/7/13

So, I mentioned last week that I was working on database integration. Since then I've made massive strides in the development of the application! Here's what's new:

I added the ability to subscribe to feeds. When the program starts up, it quickly checks for updates to any subscriptions you have. It also displays a list of subscriptions, and this lets you quickly access them.

Subscribed feeds store their entries offline in the SQL database. When checking for updates, the program also downloads new feed entries. The main advantage of this system is threefold: First, it lets you read feed updates offline(though content like pictures and video won't load). Second, it makes loading up a subscribed feed(which you'll probably be doing all of the time) lightning fast, since it doesn't need to get the data from a server. Third, it allows the program to store old entries that would otherwise be impossible to get.

Some bad news: Feed data eventually leaves an rss feed, and there's no way to access older stuff. That's one of the main reasons I decided to make my program download feed entries. The final version will also update regularly if left running, although I haven't added that yet. Of course, it may be possible to miss updates if the program isn't run for a long time. However, it ought to be able to detect this, and direct you the site that the feed is associated with. This is the best solution, considering that I want to keep the program independent of any web services. After all, it only exists because of one ending.

You can now see when an entry was posted, and entries *should* be displayed in chronological order.

I've begun work on parsing Atom feeds. It's a gigantic pain, and I really wouldn't mind punching whomever designed it, to be perfectly honest. Still, it sort of works. I can't get the content displaying right yet, but at least I can provide a link and post date.

All in all, it's been a very productive week. The next three weeks probably won't see that level of work, but it's still great to see progress on something.

EDIT: Oh crap. I just remembered my little sprite quota. I think I may have missed it last month. This month should be different, though; I have a ton of spriting to do for my Game Tech final project.